


beautiful words for ugly people

by translevi



Series: love at first broken bone [7]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Birthday Party, Christmas Party, Drabble Collection, F/M, Gender-Neutral Hange Zoë, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Trans Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), Trans Male Character, every fic is based off a "beautiful" word
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-06 08:08:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12207216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/translevi/pseuds/translevi
Summary: indefinite, shapeless(Her end will come for her soon enough, just like it came for her then.)





	1. Amorphous

Levi fights like a dance. He whirls and moves in a way that could inspire artists and others alike to create something surreal in capture of his image. He does not fight often, prefers other outlets as opposed to punching his knuckles bloody. But Annie still remembers.

He moved uniquely then too, spinning with his blades, shearing up her arms; a whirl before her vision went black. Her world fell from under her and she went down, lost in the sensation.

She’s lost in it again now.

What they have between them is the same, an endless dance of ribbons and red, tangling them together bound by fate; or perhaps, something more transcendent even still.

Isabel, someone who’s fate she has seen sprawled in drawls of ink highlighting only eyes - the window to the soul. He has never painted her, never painted Farlan for that matter, but she could recognize those eyes anywhere. Only ink jots their last days of  _ then _ .

The way he paints, the way he moves, they are all similar. No defined way, no end in sight, only dances of ribbon and promise of more; of splendor - should they follow him down.

Whether he leads them to wonderland or hell matters not to her, she’s already tracing his footsteps down the path regardless. Annie doesn’t know what she’ll find at the bottom - maybe she’s already there - but whatever it is, there is no living word she could use to describe it. There is no definition that could mold or shape him. He is not clay for the universe, perhaps more like a river. A river of blood and  _ something _ -ness that changes with every step.

Her end will come for her soon enough, just like it came for her then.

His opponent falls and although she doesn’t cheer, they lock eyes when the announcer brings out the next opponents. The time counts down for the next round, and without sparing her a glance; he resumes his dance.


	2. Beguile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> deceive
> 
> (“Ice witch.” He hisses, watching her turn the vent back up, blasting cold air all over them.)

_I just want you for my own, more than you could ever know_

The mall speakers serenade them with Mariah Carey’s voice, letting the music swell into the chorus above the heads of many busy shoppers. It was only a few days off now, the worst time of the year.

In Levi’s opinion, anyways.

Somewhere near the food court, a baby starts crying, it’s shrill shriek rising above the blend of voices and footsteps. Somewhere he hears the train, slowly carting wide-eyed children and bored parents alike around for the meager price of 10 minutes of their time.

His coffee is warm in his hand, leaning against the wall while he waits, lingering just outside a larger department store. Around 15 minutes ago Annie had disappeared in there, armed with her sunken eyes and glowering active bitch face, hands balled into fists and strutting like she was the murderer of this scary movie. The tides of frantic shoppers had consumed her and he hadn’t seen her since then.

He wonders if there would be a Christmas special on caskets.

Annie’s drink sits on the ground next to his feet, a dark chocolate mocha she had nearly weeped at the discovery of at their favored coffee shop a few months ago. He doesn’t have anywhere to be later, and the rest of their plans for the day involve stripping as soon as they got home, and putting on around 16 different layers of pajamas combined before passing out unconscious on the couch.

She really might have died in there, Levi thinks, reaching the 20 minute mark of his girlfriends inevitable descent into hell. Then - like an angel shimmering down, or a demon using an escalator - Annie appears, parting the feral sea of shoppers to reveal a 5’ demon armed with bags full of Christmas presents.

He bends down to pick up her coffee and matches her stride when she gets closer, passing it off to her. She strong-arms the shopping bags, filled with bitter determination to get it all on her own. Like the groceries, _“More than one trip is for weaklings, Levi.”_ she had said.

They get out to their car with relative ease, the aura of _“I haven’t slept in a week and this coffee is the only thing keeping the demon within my body from exploding outwards onto everyone surrounding me”_ doing wonders for keeping people out of their way.

He’s glad to put the repeated Christmas songs behind him, rubbing at his temples while his eyes welcomed the adjustment from bright fluorescent to gentle darkness.

While Annie throws her spoils throughout the car in various unoccupied places, Levi gets the car started, quickly turning the vent blast from full to off, mourning that they had been in there long enough for the car to cool.

Annie clambers in afterwards, teeth chattering with snowflakes hanging on to the thin strands of her hair. Her nose and ears are red, but he knows she’s not cold.

“Ice witch.” He hisses, watching her turn the vent back up, blasting cold air all over them.

“Still not in a merry little christmas mood?” She teased in response, kissing her teeth at him,

“Never.”

The radio responds to his statement with an appropriately timed _you’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch_ and Annie _howls._

By the time they get home, Annie is humming along to Feliz Navidad and Levi’s fingers tap in time to it on the steering wheel. They park without ceremony and are out, clambering up the brick steps to their door without fuss, it’s cold and Levi wants inside. The only thing strange about the occurrence is that Annie hasn’t attempted to fistfight him for the other half of the shopping bags. He doesn’t think too much about it though, placing them down to jam the key into the lock and jiggle it open - it was always more finicky in the cold.

The apartment is dark when they shuffle in, not saying a word as they place their bags down. He’s about to say something, asking if she’d rather get food or get netflix running, before an ear deafening _‘SURPRISE!’_ has him jerking away.

The lights flash on and he’s sure a few camera flashes went off as well. His vision rights itself, and reveals all of his friends crowding around their living room, most of whom are grinning.

He shoots a look to his right towards Annie, who responds in time with the smuggest look he had seen from her yet before Hanji is on him, howling in laughter about the look on his face and how glad they were to have a picture of it.

His poker face has yet to fall back in place and instead of opting to push them all away, he groans loudly and scans the mess that was their living room. There’s a christmas tree up in front of the sliding doors - _they don’t even own a christmas tree_ \- and streamers strown everywhere. Hanging between the walls of the living room near the ceiling, possibly the proudest decoration they had, was a streamer reading “Merry Birthmas”.

“I’m breaking up with you.” Levi informs Annie, who by this point had moved on to the eggnog and was already on her second cup.

“Understandable, have a nice day.” She hummed, eyeing someone in the crowd.

Who she was eyeing was revealed not two seconds later with a call of ‘BIG BRO’ at top volume before a _very_ energetic redhead was practically climbing all over him, talking a mile a minute with Farlan appearing soon afterwards.

“What are you doing here?” Levi asked, dumbfounded as Isabel finally placed her feet back on the ground. Isabel, who was supposed to be out of state at college, was here in his living room.

She grinned, lights in her eyes and ugly christmas sweater flashing before Farlan, also not supposed to be here, put his arm up on her shoulder, using her as an armrest.

“Why do you think?”

His and Annie’s tragic break-up can wait for another day.

His squad is up next, all four in the worst Christmas sweaters he had ever seen. Erd says his hello by blowing out the noise maker in his face, keeping it extended and wiggling it from side to side with a grin on his face. Petra hugs him and Auruo, grinning and red cheeked, wishes him happy birthmas, passes on a cup of eggnog, and slinks off to go bother Annie. Gunther is much calmer about the deal, nodding at him while still smiling before nudging Petra finally off his person.

Petra, who tears up at the slightest thing, is already doing so, smiling at him and telling him between breaths about how it was all Annie’s idea and how Petra thought Annie really was good for him and that she was _so_ happy that he was _so_ happy. He doesn’t know how to respond to that but thankfully all of them here are aware of how bad his social skills are.

She eventually breaks away to go find Erd and Auruo, bringing Gunther with her, evidently the perfect distraction for Mike in all of his stupid, useless height, to cram a Christmas sweater over his head and yank it down. Levi, understandably horrified, can only look down at it before turning a murderous glare towards Mike who nods.

Erwin and Hanji’s appearance are the only thing that prevent him from committing cold-blooded murder. His ire is turned on Hanji as they snap another photo, cackling while Erwin intervenes, noting how things hadn’t changed much between them. Levi huffs and Hanji slaps him on the back, almost upturning his drink.

“Ok, Levi! We won’t sing Happy Birthday to you but we are gonna blast Christmas songs as loud as we can.”  
  
“I’m going to get kicked out of my apartment.”

“Nonsense.” Hanji replied, grinning and breaking away from him to scream _“Let’s get this party going!”_ While the others cheered in response.

Giving in, he took a large gulp of his eggnog as the Christmas music amped up.

He found Annie in the kitchen, licking the icing from a christmas cupcake Auruo and Petra no doubt brought, before biting into the cake itself.

“You’re terrible.” Levi informed her, pressing up against her side and grabbing for some Christmas themed sandwich, pulling out the toothpick with a tiny edible snowman on it.

“You love me though.” Annie hummed, pleasantly surprised by the chocolate filling.

“Maybe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is technically a birthday thing but levi has a tragically timed birthday


End file.
